


It's a shot in the dark (but I'll make it)

by likethemoon



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, basically louis is very dramatic and harry is lovely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:48:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethemoon/pseuds/likethemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It hits him hard, making his brain all pearly and foggy, a surprise gasp resting on his throat, wanting to be released. Except - except it isn't exactly a surprise, not really. It was always there - resting under his bones and on the crook of his heart, waiting for his brain to catch up." The one where Louis is in love with Harry, and everything is sad for a little while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a shot in the dark (but I'll make it)

**Author's Note:**

> So I am here posting my first story ever written about Harry and Louis, so hello. It's kind of old and I'm feeling quite nervous because this website is filled with lot's of beautiful things and this is just my messy writing, but I am trying to improve and this is the way. I apologize for any kind of mistakes, but english is not my first language and yeah  
> Title taken out by the song Rather Be, which I listened not to the original but the cover by Jasmine Thompson. It is lovely! You should all check out.

It hits him on a Sunday morning.

The lights are a kind of tired ivory, turning the dust in the air into strange particles of gold - making the atmosphere eerie, like the moment is standing itself in time. Louis smiles, his humor strangely good for so early in the day, and hugs himself while standing next to the walls of the kitchen.

He observes Harry making tea; long limbs stretching to grab the cups and the sugar, milky-white skin under the sunbeams. He hums for himself, an old lullaby Anne probably used to sing to him when he was small, rosy lips in a line and green eyes half closed. He wants to kiss his eyelids, Louis wants. He wants to kiss his eyelids and neck and the dip of his collarbones, rest his hands on the waist of the boy, wants skin on skin. He wants wants wants.

It hits him hard, making his brain all pearly and foggy, a surprise gasp resting on his throat, wanting to be released. Except - except it isn't exactly a surprise, not really. It was always there - resting under his bones and on the crook of his heart, waiting for his brain to catch up.  
Harry knows Louis is there, but he doesn't ask for any kind of help, doesn't open his mouth to mutter a good morning, doesn't say anything. He is glad, though; It would break the spell of the moment.

They sit in the chairs across each other, sipping their drinks. There is a mess in the table, rests of napkins and used plates of last night when the boys came over, but Louis doesn't mind. Chaos was always a part of his life, with so many sisters and not many father figures. So he embraces it.

"Anything planned for today?" He asks to shut the loudness of his mind. Suddenly he can't keep his eyes from darting to Harry's mouth, to Harry's neck, to Harry's bare shoulders - suddenly, he doesn't want the silence anymore. He wants to be distracted. He wants to break it, to shout, he wants to argue with himself for being so stupid as to fall in love with his best friend, his bandmate.

"Still tired from yesterday." He answers and it's stupid because it isn't exactly what Louis asked but he doesn't care, he isn't really listening, his heart is beating so loud he can’t quite really understand the feeling.

"S'pose so." Louis mumbles, getting up. not really looking at Harry. “I’m going out, though. Need a little bit of air.”

“This early?” Harry sounds confused, and he doesn’t want to turn around to find his frowning face, because it isn’t fair. It isn’t.

“Yeah.” Louis mutters, setting his cup on the sink. “I really, really need some air.”

There is silence, so he goes away after that.

 

~

 

He goes to Zayn’s because he can’t go anywhere else.

He has a key to his flat, which is always a bonus, so he goes there and lies on the sofa waiting for him to wake up, loud thoughts beating his head. He tries to sleep, he does, tries listening to music and reading a book that's resting on the table, but he can't, he can't because he is in love, so in love, but he can't be because Harry is his best friend and they just aren't supposed to -

"Mate." A sleepy Zayn appears on the living room, hard stubble and sweater. "What'cha doing here?"

"Zayn." His voice comes out, broken. Louis hates himself a little. "I - I think I -"

"Hey, hey." Zayn's eyes widen, noticing his friend's restlessness. "C'm here." And that's all it does, that's really all it does - Zayn's open arms and the promise of something warm, that's all it does to Louis to start crying.

It's ugly. He sobs, heavy broken sounds that drags Zayn's heart to the ground, and they stay there forever. He sobs and the morning turns into afternoon, until he dries his tears and there isn't anything left inside him except that nagging feeling.

"I'm in love with him." He chokes out while they drink coffee in silence. "I'm in love with him, and I think I've been in love with him all along, and I -" He stares at his hands, short fingers and golden knuckles. "And I am living with him and he is my best friend and I - how can I keep doing this?"

Zayn stays in silence for a minute. Louis doesn't want to look at him because he is scared of what's he is going to find there, but by the way he reacted, he suspects he already knew what Louis confided him.

(Was he that obvious? He really doesn't want to know.)

"Do you want to come stay at mine's for a while? To clear your head, figure everything out? I know we only have three weeks until the tour, but - "

"Thank you. Thank you."

When Louis looks up, it seems like Zayn wants to say something else, but he gets up and goes to wash their cups.

~

 

Harry knows he is avoiding him.

It's two weeks after his realisation, a week before the tour, and he barely stopped home at all - barely even talked to Harry. He only came back to the flat to get some of his stuff, leaving a note under the kitchen kettle saying he was going to stay at a friends.

"If he asks don't tell him I'm with you." He said to Zayn on the first day. 

The thing is, they have this tradition before tours and important band meetings, this thing where they have a get together to just talk and drink and it's Zayn's time to host, so the boys go there.

Louis does a fine job of avoiding talking directly to Harry, never really looking him in the eye and sitting almost too far. His skin itches, though. He steal glances and knows he is being stealed looks too, knows Harry is observing him by the corner of the eye, and there's this tension - this layered tension that it's almost physical and everyone else in the room can see it, feel it. They don't comment, though. For that, Louis is grateful.

"I'm gonna get some more beer." He mumbles because his bottle is almost over and Liam just started to tell this story where everyone seems to be paying lots of attention. Niall nods, and Zayn looks at him worriedly, but he just smiles to pretend everything is alright.

(It isn't. It hasn't been for two weeks.)

The kitchen is not big but he takes his time, taking the bottles out of the fridge lazily, trying to kill time before he has to go back there.

"Lou." Harry's voice cuts though his thoughts, ending his daydream. Louis wants to run without looking back. "I went to the bathroom to wash my arm because I accidentaly spilled my drink, and I found - I found your perfume." Louis entire body freezes. "And than I started looking, just observing, and there's traces of you here. Everywhere. One of your cd's is in the player, your Da Vinci Code is in the sofa - and don't even pretend it isn't yours, because the cover has that Amazon sticker it came with. I just - the friend you are staying with is Zayn's? I don't understand. Why did you -"

"I don't want to talk about it with you." He wants to cut the conversation so his voice is cold and his tone emotionless. There's something that feels a lot like sadness crumbling on his chest.

"Lou. Louis." Harry's voice is broken, faltering. "I don't understand what I did. I don't - please, _please_ just talk to me."

He turns around, and just to see him like that - eyebrows up and the corners of his mouth down, such a confused and sad expression - softens Louis' heart a little.

"You didn't do anything, Harry. You didn't do anything. I am just a little messed up in my head right now, and it's not fair to stay with you while I figure things out."

"So you are staying with Zayn?" His tone is hurt. "Please. Lou. You are my best friend. You know you can tell me things, right? I am always here for you. It doesn't matter how fucked up you are - we are all fucked up in the end and I am here for these moments. I am here for these reasons." His tone is a arrow through his heart, his words shots through his brain.

"That's the problem, Harry." He can't recognise his own voice. It doesn't seem like himself talking. "I'm not - I can't believe I am doing this. Listen. I'm -"

"Lads?" Niall's voice comes in from the living room, a loud knife breaking the spell. "Are you two coming with the beer or not? I'm in seriously need of some more alcohol."

A second passes, a deadly silence. Harry closes his eyes, because he knows he lost Louis.

 

~

 

In life, you build moments and save memories. There are those you can live again - riding a roller coaster, seeing a movie, reading a book - but some of them are so big and so life changing that only in a new galaxy in another planet the gradiosity of it could be reacted. They are those you save not because you have to but because you need to. Memories where the what if's and the turn outs are as big as the universe, the roads different kinds of shots in the dark.

That almost moment was that. A new solar system, a shot in the dark. And they both knew it.

 

~

 

The boys leave but before Zayn goes to him with some advice, Louis locks himself in the guest bedroom with a bottle of vodka.

(He was never the one to do the best decisions, really.)

"Haz." A few shots later and he is mumbling the words before they go through his conscience, the alcoohol buzzing his veins, making everything fuzzy around the edges, fruit flavored and neon colored. "Haz, 'm sorry ok, 'm sorry for being in love with you. It's ok though. I'm almost ok. I'm getting there. I'm - I love ya but you don't need to know that, right?"

He is dizzy, so so dizzy, and he may or may not be calling his best friend to tell him he is in love with him, but Harry never really listens to his voice mail anyways, doesn't really do it.

"Lou? Lou?" There is someone talking and it seems an awful lot like him but it can't be, not really, because Harry has left for minutes, maybe hours. "Louis, is that you?"

"This is Louis. Are you Harry? M' Harry?" He is confused. The voice seems to be coming from his phone.

"Yes. I'm Harry." Harry sounds like sunshine, he thinks. Like sunshine and smiles.

"Oh, you picked up your phone." Louis says dumbly, and giggles, he fucking giggles. He can't giggle while on the phone with his crush. He can't.

"I picked up my phone, yeah."

~ 

A few hours later, Louis wakes up with a throbbing head. It seems like thousands of nails have been installed inside his brain, like shards of glass are being dragged under his skin - and than something bigger comes crashing, like a tsunami, and he remembers the phone call he did a few hours ago.

His mouth tastes a lot like shit, so he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He takes the opportunity to also take a shower, the warm water unraveling the tension that's built up on his muscles, dragging the rest of his energy down the hole. There is a numbness in his brain. He knows he fucked up - he doesn't remember the extent of his fucked upness, but he remembers most of the phone call, anyway, and the shit is done and he needs to collect his thoughts before he tries to make everything alright again.

Louis dresses for war - a warm sweather and his trackies, the best and worst sort of confortable - and grabbing a cup of coffee in the kitchen, he goes to open the door out of Zayn's flat - only to find a sitting Harry outside.

(He looks beautiful, Louis thinks. Like the worst kind of beautiful, the one who breaks your heart.)

"You fell asleep in the middle of the phone call, Louis, and I just couldn't - I couldn't wait for you. I came here but I didn't have the fucking keys so I just waited -"

"Why are you waiting -"

Beautiful Harry gets up, long limbs in dangerously skinny jeans, graceful once in his life - and kisses him, kisses _kisses_ him, all warm and honey flavored, sloppy and desperate.

They keep doing that for a long time, and after they separate - human beings desperate for oxygen, desperate for air - they rest their foreheads together.

And Louis cries.


End file.
